poetry in action features work by poets from around the world, translated into English.

It has three rallying cries:

Poets of the world, unite and take over!

Resist the oppressive constraints of good, publishable poetry established by mainstream literary venues!

Only poetry in translation, all the time!

Coming at you on the 20th of each month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HORNS

 

Smartphones cause teens to grow horns. The research was published by the magazine Easy Scientific. We have observed cone-shaped outgrowths at the base of the skull, Doctor Foresta explains. On account of the head being tilted forward, the spinal column apparently has to bear an unnatural weight thus resulting in the osseous growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LE CORNA

 

Gli smartphone fanno crescere le corna ai ragazzi. La ricerca è stata pubblicata sulla rivista Easy Scientific. Si sviluppano escrescenze coniche alla base del cranio – spiega il dottor Foresta. Per l’inclinazione della testa, la colonna vertebrale sopporterebbe un peso improprio nella parte posteriore causando la crescita ossea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLD SLUGS AND UNEXPECTED TOADS

 

He doesn’t go out very often in the evening. He feels too exposed to the dark, like it is some lit window with no curtains. He was nonetheless determined to go to that reading, the book wasn’t too bad, and the author seemed nice. He left the house an hour earlier, so as to arrive at a leisurely stroll five-fashionable-minutes late. He came to a halt by the entrance because of a group of teenagers standing there, beer bottles right up to their moustaches. The younger girls looked like businesswomen, skirts matching jackets that some people would have felt uneasy about wearing in the 80s, all dutifully complete with Louis Vuitton handbags. He resumed his walk, a familiar voice behind him, leaning out of the bookshop, uselessly saying his name again and again in the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROSPI IMPREVISTI E FREDDI LUMACONI

 

Non esce spesso di sera, si sente troppo esposto al buio, neanche fosse una finestra accesa senza tende. Era però deciso ad andare a quella presentazione, il libro non gli era dispiaciuto e l’autore prometteva di essere simpatico. Era uscito di casa un’ora prima, per arrivare passeggiando senza fretta con cinque eleganti minuti di ritardo. Si era bloccato sulla porta d’ingresso per un gruppo di ragazzi appostati con le bottiglie di birra sotto i baffi. Le ragazze più giovani sembravano donne in carriera, con gonne abbinate a giacche che negli Ottanta qualcuno avrebbe avuto scrupoli a indossare, con tanto di borsette Louis Vitton d’ordinanza. Aveva continuato nella via, alle sue spalle una voce conosciuta, affacciata alla libreria, ripeteva il suo nome senza successo nel tramonto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APARTMENT BLOCK STORY

To Santina, who will forgive me

 

Not a day went by when, stepping out on the balcony, I wouldn’t find myself having to attend to the birds’ plunder. The eighty-year-old lady on the top floor didn’t care about the neighbours’ protests or the block administrator’s threat, she just kept feeding bread to the pigeons. I used to find whole loaves on my balcony. I am moaning, but then I also think that these characters, often very fat or extremely slim, who give bread and rice to birds, might actually be all that is left of humanity. Too bad I only thought about this after I pushed her out the window, now that the pigeons have stopped cooing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RACCONTO CONDOMINIALE

a Santina, che mi perdonerà

 

Non c’era giorno che uscendo sul balcone non dovessi rimediare alla razzia degli uccelli. All’ottantenne dell’ultimo piano non interessavano i reclami dei vicini e le minacce dell’amministratore, lanciava comunque il pane ai piccioni – ritrovavo sul balcone intere michette. Mi lamento ma poi penso che questi personaggi, spesso molto grassi o magrissimi, che danno pane e riso agli uccelli, siano poi in fondo ciò che rimane dell’umanità. Peccato averci pensato solo dopo averla spinta dalla finestra, adesso che i piccioni hanno smesso di tubare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARTINO

 

Martino? Yes, I knew him well, in 2019 he set his mind on founding a poetry publishing house, he’d been toying with the idea for years, he’d told me about it on several occasions. Then one fine day he got it started, he was happy, he would go around the city and, every so often, bing, hand out a book to the weirdest of people. Delightful little gags: “It’s free, sir, believe me, it’s a gift. Take it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARTINO

 

Martino? Lo conoscevo bene, nel 2019 si era messo in testa di fondare una casa editrice di poesia, ci ragionava da anni, me ne aveva parlato a più riprese. Poi un bel giorno aveva iniziato, era felice, girava per la città con i libri nello zaino e ogni tanto, zac, alle persone più strane, porgeva un volume. Scenette deliziose: «È gratis, mi creda, è un regalo. Lo prenda».

 

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Alberto Pellegatta is a poet, journalist and publisher from Milan, Italy. His poetry collections – Ipotesi di felicità (2017) and L’ombra della salute (2011), both published by Italy’s historic poetry press Lo Specchio Mondadori ­– have won several literary prizes. His poems have been featured in various European magazines and anthologies, including London Poetry, Quimera, La Stampa, Nuovi argomenti, Nuovissima poesia italiana (Mondadori 2004), and translated into English, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. He is the founder and editorial director of Taut Editori, an independent publishing house based in Milan.

Lorenzo Mandelli is a London-based writer and translator. His fiction has been shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize 2020 and The Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize 2020.